Musicians are claiming a small victory in pressuring BMW to rethink its internet advertising policies.
The car maker, which posted revenues of €68bn in 2011 - making it more than twice the size of Google - has promised to review how it promotes itself on the internet after the Trichordist blog noticed the German giant was …

"I never knew that downloading a copy of a movie was similar to human trafficking."

Yeah, all those teenagers that share music in school are knee-deep in illegal immigrants too (unlike, of course, the idle rich who own the record companies and big mansions in Bel-Air - they'd never have anything to do with human trafficking, oh no. (Please don't look in the kitchen or talk to the cleaning staff)).

he other day I was cruising along as usual coming onto one of my interstates, which was very busy with inferior cars.

First off, I couldn't believe that the volume of traffic DIDN'T slow down for me AT ALL as I came off the exit ramp! I had to squeeze into a barely big enough gap between two cars in order to get onto my motorway!

The driver of the car behind me did realise his mistake though and honked an apology to me with a long blast of his horn.

Unbelievably, I had to do the same again before I could get to the BMW lane.

Anyway, once I was in the BMW lane and posing along at 110 mph enjoying the adulation that the inferior car drivers were giving me, I noticed an inferior car ahead of me which was not only in the BMW lane of my motorway, but was driving at a ridiculous 70 mph!

Naturally, I got within a foot or so of his rear bumper and flashed my headlights to remind him he shouldn't be in the BMW lane of my motorway and to get out of my way.

Of course, once he realised it was a BMW behind him, he did just that, but I could hardly believe it when he pulled straight back out behind me!

He also tried to keep up with me and when he realised I would out-run him, he put on some blue lights in his front grill and urged me to get onto the hard shoulder so that he could congratulate me on my excellent car.

Needless to say, I was eager to oblige and when we had stopped, the man gave me a piece of paper confirming what I already knew - that my car goes fast!

Apparently he wants everyone to know what a superior car I have, so I had to take my drivers licence to a police station to be sent away to have some points put on! (They're not free points either - they're £20 each and I was only allowed 3.) But the man at the police station said that because I drive a BMW, it won't be much longer before I earn the full 12 points, and then I won't even NEED a driving licence, so they will take it off me!

See, now THAT'S the sort of respect you get when you own and drive a BMW!

Interstate?

As a law-abiding cyclist (stopping at reds and so on.) I'm wary of all other vehicles. I've been in a total of three accidents and two of them were BMWs. Obviously on those two occasions, it was my privilege to collide with them, etc.

Re: Shriley

Brilliant idea!

Because everybody knows that pirates don't buy ANYTHING! They'll steal that BMW just like they steal their MP3s! (That is, they'll have somebody go out and find bits and pieces of it all over the world so they can re-assemble it at home).

"mail order brides" ???

WTF? Is this a crime now?

I met my lovely wife through what is sometimes termed the "mail order bride" process; although (technically) she more or less randomly picked me off the list rather than vice versa. We wrote back and forth, visited once, and then got married on my second visit. We've been happily married more than a dozen years now and have several kids. She's still slender, still gorgeous, and (amazingly) still significantly younger than I ("Winning!" ;-) ). She's the boss - in case you're wondering - no sexism or racism here folks. ~Zero chance of divorce, ever.

So where exactly is the crime? As compares to meeting someone in a local boozer (the long term results of this generally-accepted 'beer-glasses' process are MORE OFTEN almost criminal).

Royalties?

Speaking of lazy journalism...

...maybe Mr. Orlowsky should spend some time on the road and chat with some real musicians.

I happen to have the opportunity to do so, since I've been working in sound engineering and stage tech for donkey's years. I worked with a myriad of lesser known bands in the indie circuit, and I hear a lot of war stories. Record companies and collection societies still are major bugbears, and the general consensus is that Courtney Love's famous rant (when allowing for a bit of hyperbole) is largely spot on.

A case in point I've mentioned earlier, but it bears repeating: I regularly work with a musician-songwriter who has published his work for over a decade through a (semi-major) record company. His older albums have been out of print for some time, the record company refuses to do a rerun. At his live performances, his fans keep asking for those albums so now he has taken to giving away CD-R copies, and making those albums available on p2p networks, effectively pirating his own work. His latest work is self-published, and high quality audio files are available for free. People *do* buy the CD.

"I seriously doubt that any ad network or ad exchange is clean. It is an occupation that is at best suspect and at worst a haven for money laundering. It is also very likely that your paycheck includes profit from human misery from copyright infringement to mail order brides."